Output details

Dark Architecture

Dark Architecture is a single 34-minute improvisation by Max Eastley and Rhodri Davies on invented instruments, most of them amplified using contact microphones, and amplified harp, respectively.

The improvisation was recorded at South Hill Park Arts Centre and took place during an event entitled Sound Installation: Interior & Exterior at which Eastley exhibited a number of his kinetic drawing devices and created improvised performances with John Butcher and Rhodri Davies. There are details here: http://www.digitalmediacentre.org/wp/?p=51. Eastley also discusses the project on the Gene Pool Podcast #14 included in the portfolio documentation for this output.

Eastley states that:

With an installation of this nature which incorporates the concepts of the in-animate with the animate, that is, the installations with the improvising musicians, initiates a clearly perceived tension between the two as the recording progresses.

The improvisation responds to the exterior conditions on that particular day with fireworks beginning in the distance and influencing the methods and activities of the two musicians. As Eastley has commented:

There is now a new tension a change of perspective. The choice for the musicians and the recordist is to stop or continue on a new plane another dimension. The recording continues there was no editing: there was a non-verbal agreement between all the participants to accept the change from one perspective to a radically changed new one.

This output is an example of improvisation as active listening. Material is developed and timbres explored in the moment as the recording is being made. Eastley responds to:

• the sounds of the kinetic installations in the recording space

• the activities of fellow improviser Rhodri Davies

• the serendipitous arrival of external sound in the shape of fireworks.

Eastley actively develops strategies for exploring and dealing with these influences throughout the improvisation.